Wednesday, November 7, 2007

A-Rod Conspiracy?

Get your tinfoil hats out and don’t blame the messenger here, but a lot of people are starting to espouse some conspiracy theories when it comes to Alex Rodriguez and baseball. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of 3B on the market suddenly. Miguel Cabrera is being shopped, Scott Rolen is making news about his no-trade clause, Mike Lowell wasn’t re-signed by the Red Sox despite many thinking it would happen in concert with the Curt Schilling signing, and Adrian Beltre is being mentioned as an available commodity. Is someone trying to inflate the supply and hold Rodriguez’s value down?

Carroll kind of doubts it though:

If baseball can’t agree on instant replay, what makes you think they could pull off a grand conspiracy?

I agree with Carroll that such a conspiracy is highly unlikely, but not necessarily for the same reasons. After all, baseball's genius owners once did actually attempt to pull off an even grander conspiracy. Indeed, instead of simply trying to depress the salary of one free agent, they once (actually three times) tried to collude against them all.